Then you wouldn't port Nethack, you'd make a Nethack-inspired game that wouldn't be Nethack. The whole point of Nethack is having a seemingly "open" gameplay : tons of availables actions, your imagination is most often than not the limit.
Hell, Nethack's motto is "if you think something is possible, do it, the devs probably thought it about it before". Actually, limitating you to the obvious would probably prevent you from finishing the game (which is already insanely hard as it is).
However, mentioning Nethack is clearly very relevent to the debate here. That's the only game i know that give you this sensation of freedom with a predefined set of commands.
PS : I tried Final Fantasy XI on a PC I know first-hand how console RPG's interface can be frustrating.

Not to be mean, but have you ever played Nethack seriously ?
What you say is wrong because, Nethack doesnt limit you, you can try any action with any object (it may lead to nothing but at least you can try to do it). You select an action, it suggests obvious choices but you can also try everything else.
For example, if you want to "wield a weapon" (== "equip a weapon"), the game suggest items that obviously qualify as weapons (sword, bow, ...) but if you want to wield another object such as a potion, a monster corpse, or anything else, you can do it and you may discover interesting effects with this.
My point is, if you go from action->object to object->action, you would still have to display all the objects available and then display all the actions available : you didn't reduce choice or the difficulty to navigate the interface at all.